Fiera Milano inaugurates the largest roof-mounted photovoltaic system in Italy

Imagine 45 football pitches placed next to each other and covered with 50,000 photovoltaic panels, allowing the production of 21.6 GWh per year, equal to the consumption of about 7,800 households, avoiding the emission of over 9,800,000 tonnes of CO2 per year (corresponding to that of about 10,000 cars), with a total installed capacity of 18 MWp.

These are some of the numbers that render the impressiveness and strategic nature of Fiera Milano's new photovoltaic plant, one of the largest (330,000 square metres of surface area) roof-mounted installations to date in Europe and one of the ten largest in the world. The project, realised by a joint venture between Fondazione Fiera Milano (main shareholder of the trade fair company) and A2A, was carried out in three phases, with the start of the project in 2018 and the delivery of the first part in April 2022, followed by a second phase that ended last February, and now the last phase, which has seen the completion of the work. The total investment was around EUR 15 million.

The infrastructure will make it possible to cover about 35 per cent of Fiera Milano's energy needs for the Rho exhibition centre, while the remaining portion of the energy generated will be fed into the grid. The location of the plant on the roof of the Fiera offers the additional advantage of not occupying agricultural land, commented Lombardy Region President Attilio Fontana during the presentation of the new infrastructure, emphasising that in Lombardy "important agreements and synergies are always made that make it possible to achieve major goals such as this one, which goes in the direction of sustainability, which should not be seen only as a duty, but as an opportunity.

More: as a factor of competitiveness, as Enrico Pazzali, president of Fondazione Fiera Milano, emphasised: 'Thanks to this plant it will be possible to have the most sustainable trade fair facility in our country, increasing our ability to attract international events, which demand sustainability as a prerequisite. Now that its construction is complete, this plant is the first in terms of efficiency among European exhibition centres and is ahead of Barcelona (5.9 GWh), Stuttgart (4.3) and Munich (2.7).

Moreover, the project is part of the objectives envisaged by Fiera Milano's new 2024-2027 integrated sustainability plan and represents "a great opportunity as a positioning element for our company, which has included the theme of sustainability as a second dimension of growth and development within the Strategic Plan," specified Francesco Conci, CEO and General Manager of the trade fair company. "It is a qualifying criterion for attracting and hosting large travelling events and we strongly believe that it can be a competitive advantage and a key factor in driving business growth. Among the 30 objectives of the integrated sustainability plan is the commitment to increase the percentage of electricity from renewable sources from 38% to 70%. The plant will also make it possible to make the energy management of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Games, which will be held in the Fiera Pavilions, almost completely autonomous, Pazzali added.